Obamacare vs. the shutdown

Americans awoke Tuesday to the fact that nearly half the federal government has shut down, and to a certainty that one-sixth of the U.S. economy will be profoundly altered via Obamacare.

We mention these two points together because House Republicans want a one-year delay on new health provisions before they’ll approve a new federal budget. Democrats refuse.

Result: Hundreds of thousands of “nonessential” government workers may be idled for hours, days, weeks. We’ll just have to see how that plays out. Many federal offices will be closed, workers furloughed while Congress tries to unknot itself. Among the casualities

But even a government shutdown won’t stop the Obamacare rollout. This is the largest health care expansion since the passage of Medicare in 1965. It is here, now. Millions of Americans must obtain coverage or pay a penalty.

On Tuesday, the new online marketplaces opened for business. That means some of Obamacare’s mysteries will be solved: What will coverage cost? What will plans cover? How much will copays and deductibles be?

Americans have dozens of questions about it. Locally, people do as well. In all, more than 11,000 adults in Alamance County between the ages of 18 and 64 are without health insurance.

Area government and nonprofit services have met for months to map a strategy for aiding those puzzled or with fears about the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. Officials with the Alamance County Department of Social Services, Health Department, Public Libraries and United Way gathered at the Twin Lakes retirement village on Tuesday to set up a bank of volunteers who will be trained to help applicants. The county Health Department reports that three full-time navigators will be available to provide support. County libraries will be available for these navigators to guide applicants. In addition, Graham Public Library will be the site for an information session at 6 p.m. Nov. 4.

Still, with all this advance preparation, folks may want to wait for a few days (weeks?) to let the feds work out the kinks.

What’s certain is that Obamacare health care changes will ripple through every American’s life. Doctors, hospitals and insurers have invested large sums to gear up for the law’s complex requirements. They’ll treat many new patients.

Employers are scrambling to make decisions: Hire? Fire? Cut workers’ hours? Even those that now provide health care may shunt employees into new, privately run exchanges. That’s a rapidly evolving alternative to today’s employer-managed insurance system and to Obamacare: Employers pay a set amount for employees, who then choose from among multiple plans on a private exchange.

Millions of Americans stand to gain or lose from this law and its consequences, intended and unintended. And now, as if to compound all the controversy that Obamacare has provoked, it’s caught up in an epic battle over deficits and debt.

Page 2 of 2 - The Republicans argue that Obamacare’s mandates are so unpopular that Americans will understand a shutdown. We think they instead should be focusing their attack on the unsustainability of all major entitlement programs. Obamacare, which stands to become a huge and profligate federal spending spree, is but one of those entitlements. We wish the effort to kill Obamacare hadn’t outpaced larger concerns about existing programs — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security — that already risk insolvency.

Once Republicans and Democrats stop grandstanding, we think there’s a solution to this impasse: Don’t force individuals to sign up for coverage this year. Suspend that mandate for a year, just as employers were relieved for a year of their mandate to provide insurance.

A year’s delay could allow both major political parties to declare victory. Better, it would allow millions of Americans who obtain coverage under Obamacare, and many who don’t, to see how this system works.